It does, it leaves more questions than answers about how Les Kiss perceives the outside backs in general, Fergo.

Yeah.

And I think like, you know, I'm all for people to have their own opinion about it, but what I'm going to do is going to throw some numbers at the people now, because I am currently working on quite a detailed article for rugby pass about where the Wallabies need to get better to be enabled to be even a competitor with the spring box, which is the next game that everyone's playing or that the Wallabies are playing.

So it's going to be hugely important about that.

But so yeah, Okay, so in the French top 14, there's 26 regular round games just in the French top 14, and that equals 2,080 minutes all up.

Jordan Bataille played only 458 minutes of those, so less than a quarter.

So...

I think South Africa will be the 23 that is most likely going to be aligned with what takes us into a World Cup.

you know, if you've like, how do you get to a billion dollars? You know what I mean? Like, do you need as many people now as you would have, you know, five years ago or 10 years ago? And how do you weigh like scaling appropriately to hit those goals? You know?

Well, number one, you want to make, uh, your team's life easier, right? You want to be able to have them do more, um, with almost less, right? So we look to optimize specific tasks that they do, right? Tracking loads, assigning, because most of the customers they need, you have to be connected to their tracking and they have certain requirements.

So, you know, one of the things that we're adding on is, right? So when we book the load, it just begins to auto track.

We don't have to go in, click a button.

We don't have to call the driver.

Hey, connect to this tracking.

It's just automatically doing this.

Like that's probably not, That's not a great thing, you know? It's

But how'd you see the first 40 in short?

Yeah, in short, stodgy, stodgy.

Not necessarily what the Wallabies were looking for, and it really is that attack factor that I was talking about.

They haven't been getting their swing right, they haven't been getting their down lines right, they haven't been getting their pull action and pull receiver in the play making in the boot correct either.

Hugely, hugely frustrating to be able to watch Carter Gordon have balls thrown behind him, like, kinda like Sacha Feinberg and Gomisulu was having for the Springboks last week in the Greatest Rivalry Tour Test one.

Um, and j- it's, it's happened for Isaac Henry, it happened for other players.

It's just not quite clicking.

If that felt like a little bit of a missed opportunity and potentially where Wilson's leadership could come to the fore as well.

So you'd have, the parliament would have one hand tied behind its back in terms of its levers, yet be forced to raise all the money it wanted to spend, which would inevitably lead to unprecedented spending cuts.

Yeah, I mean, I think you're right.

One way of looking at this is that bad GERS figures are proof that the union isn't working, that we're performing terribly economically and we're running up huge debts and that, you know, Scotland would be better taking control of these things itself.

But yes, if we were to do that, we would be in huge debt.

The question is, you know, would we be in any more debt relatively that we're in already and dealing with as an economy already, albeit through the Treasury and the Bank of England? So the, it's, I can remember back to 2014, the referendum years, where actually the discussion was around, well, how would we divide up the debt if Scotland became independent? And this was a sort of big issue, like, you know, essentially be a kind of divorce settlement where Scotland would be agreeing to take a certain percentage of overall UK debt as part of a negotiation on what asset, UK assets, including the use of the pound that Scotland would be retaining.

So it's, I think it's when you get into it in that level that it just becomes very difficult really to, given that independence doesn't look anywhere close at the moment, it's just such a hypothetical discussion to actually try to drill down into what position economically would an independent Scotland be in, other than to say it would kind of be in the same position it's in now.

It would be a heavily indebted Northern European country that spends a lot more on healthcare and social services, et cetera, than it could really afford to.

But it does kind of dovetail in nicely, doesn't it, John, with suggestions that, uh, the UK government might be changing their position or softening their position on new North Sea oil? Not, not quite drill, baby, drill, but, uh, maybe supporting existing projects that are in the pipeline.

I think this is the kind of bench that lends itself to dictate terms.

Absolutely.

No, I think he has good experience.

Um, you look at that bench, and it's actually Billy Pollard's first cap of 2026.

Uh, not played under Schmidt at all, and so super, super exciting to be able ...

Like in this year, that is, this last three tests.

Really, really exciting to be able to see what kind of impact Billy Pollard will add because much like Charlie Kale, he's extremely fleet-footed, very, very powerful, has that speed to burn if he gets into a wider, uh, wider channel.

He's got a lot to offer, really physical and a great foil for Hunter Paisami

But, John, do you think Nicola Sturgeon will choose to walk back from this or do you think she's got... more to say i

mean i i suspect what she's will have said to john swinney if there has been a conversation and there probably has been a conversation as comments john my comments have been taken completely out of context i've not been slagging you off um like this is this is a newspaper creation um And I'd imagine John Swinney must have accepted that to some extent.

Whether Nicola will be able to help herself going further when she's interviewed by Ian Dale remains to be seen.

I mean, I think anyone looking at this kind of any impartial observer on recent history of the SNP can see that Angela Constance is incorrect by far the towering figure of the SNP's modern history was Alex Salmond and in terms of second place well history is still being written but it would be a toss up between Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney Nicola Sturgeon was actually extremely popular for a long time but then the wheels kind of started to come off in the last couple of years now if you want to look at what were the policies that led to that there was the position on trans rights which had become deeply unpopular and just really impossible to defend in a kind of logical sense and there was also the oil and gas issue.

Now these are both the things that I think the primary things that John Swinney's tried to sort of roll back on in his time as First Minister and I think that's probably been in large part responsible for the parties kind of being a bit reinvigorated in the polls and kind of coming back into popularity with large sections of the public.

So I just think it's, you know, really, I'd say it lacks introspection for Nicola Sturgeon to look at this and think, I was the best thing that ever happened to this party and if only John had carried on with the policies that I was championing then things would have been even better and he would somehow maybe have achieved that majority that he was going for and would be in a better position now.

I don't think anyone who can take a step back and looking at it really believes that.

But did you kind of run a brick wall with trying to confirm that form with the Scottish Government?

What have you made of Jess Wilson's attempts to reshape the Coalition?

I think she's the most impressive Liberal leader since Geoff Kennett.

I think that she hasn't really... done anything wrong.

She's been really smart.

I'm surprised how well she's done.

I thought at 36, 35, when she took over, she would have struggled.

But I think she's running into a headwind.

The quality of candidates is not always that great.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, obviously you're talking about quite a small pool of MSPs that any prospective candidate needs to get the support of.

But I think that, you know, if Labour want this to be about a kind of genuine reflection on the state of the party in Scotland and they want to see real change, then this would be an extremely bad look if Monica was to not be able to stand because two of her soon to be parliamentary colleagues would refuse to make sure that she was on the the ballot um i mean i think it's monica is arguably scottish labour's um politician with the most name recognition and in scotland she's been a really good campaigner over a decade um she's considered to be on the left of the party i think that michael mara will be very pleased if she doesn't get onto the ballot because I think he'll probably beat any other sort of left candidate that gets put up and I think the thing that this would really speak to if it were to happen and I think got to hope that it wouldn't that they you know the party internally sees that it would just be such a bad look and they want there to be a real contest and they've got to make sure that people who want the opportunity to stand can.

with him but I mean the Burnham bubble will have burst by 2031 and you know the Scottish Labour might get a good result in the general election by being close to Burnham but you know he is going to go down at some point and in 2031 if that's their strategy they might find themselves in exactly the same position as they were in May which is they've tied themselves to an unpopular UK Labour leader

Yeah, I mean, it certainly does look like there's been a burning bounce at the moment.

Labour are suddenly leading in the polls nationally.

again um there was just like you can feel it you know there's a bit more energy and enthusiasm around the the government now um i've never really bought the idea of the sort of scottish labor breaking away i just i don't i mean do you think your average voter really has any conception of the sort of governance relationship between scottish labor and UK Labour, I think they probably don't.

I think short of actually changing the name of the party in Scotland, nobody would really be aware of what that relationship was anyway.

Why? Because of the rise of One Nation?

Yeah, look, One Nation, talk about the rise of One Nation.

News poll this week has got One Nation coming off from its peak down to into the teens.

So it looks like it's heading towards Greens numbers if it keeps coming off the way it is.

I think One Nation, and I argued yesterday, in Monday's paper that I think One Nation is overstated as a force in Victoria, but that doesn't mean it won't do well, for example, in the Upper House, but I think it's more nuanced and Newspoll would suggest that it's going to be a coalition v Labor contest more than, but, you know, it's still, you know, November 28th, so I'm withholding judgment.

Is that going to fly?

Oh, look, I think it will.

I think all that discussion gets drowned out by reality.

It does feel like, and I probably say this after every time Scottish Labour lose a Scottish Parliament election, but this feels like crunch time for them.

Yeah, I mean, we look at the history of the last few elections and it's unavoidable things have been getting gradually worse.

And now, as Monica said, the same number of seats has reformed.

Scottish Greens are breathing down their neck.

Business as usual isn't really an option.

I don't think there needs to be a genuine facing up to the problems.

It's true that you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

said there is a 10-year plan that more details will emerge of that in the in the coming weeks and months so

So he- help us understand that a little bit more, like the type of-- What does a deal structure look like for the business, and, uh, how is it different from, let's say, direct le- lending or venture debt or, or other types of financing available to these companies, or other avenues that they could potentially take?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're absolutely right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

disappointing.

Yeah, but he can't really maintain that, can he? Up until now, he's been talking about the things he wants to talk about.

It's mostly been around this idea of rewiring Britain's constitutional stuff, federalism, he's not going to be able to continue to talk about these topics without answering questions on the really difficult stuff which is going to be around the economy, around international stuff, Israel, Gaza, is he in favour of a wealth tax, is he really going to be able to nationalise public public utilities like you would like to do anytime soon.

We mentioned Andrew Neil earlier, the last time he ran to be Labour leader he was on Andrew Neil's show and Andrew Neil was giving a bit of a hard time and there's some footage of him saying when I become Labour leader you'll get the first interview.

Andrew Neil's now been saying right great let's hope that's not the first broken promise.

and I wouldn't be surprised if it is.

In some ways it's inexplicable just the extent to which Keir Starmer has been unpopular as a Labour prime minister and a lot of people put that down to just presentational stuff.

Do you want to give us a summary of where we are and why the story is important? so the

Um, the other-

Well, to, uh, speak to that, um, Carol and I have decided to go ahead and s- share some of, uh, our estate with them and not wait till we die, because we saw how responsible they would be.

... um, for them.

Well, one of the things that, I don't know if y'all have even recognized it or not, but so, um, early in your adult lives when you had grandkids, early on I felt that I was responsible of being the spiritual leader.

[laughs]

... now that's all gone and 'cause of AI, but.

Exactly.

So she reached out from Shed Media and was like, "Hey, do you wanna hop on a call this Friday?" So we hop on a call, and she was seeing Sammy and I on the internet for quite a while now, and she's like, "Do you wanna create a prank show?" I'm like, "Yeah, sure.

Blah, blah, blah." Half an hour throughout that call, I was explaining like ab- out our whole community.

So for viewers who are tuning in to Little Singles, what are you hoping to, you'll achieve from the series?

series?I really want them to enjoy watching us and how we are as a, a, a friend group, but I really also want them to understand how we live versus the average size people.

And I, I, I want them t- to just really know that we can live our lives just like anyone else.

Like how much do you buy into this is McKellar's decision or is this the Waratahs board's decision?

Well, I, I think as I mentioned before, and this is-- I don't wanna sound like I'm sitting on the fence here, but it's, it really two things can be true at once.

Like if McKellar feels like A, he's not getting buy-in from the players to the extent that he wants, and B, he doesn't feel like he's getting the backing from the board to be able to make radical change that he feels need to be made to the culture to then better it for the future, then why would he want to stay? Like he's just, he's just, he's on a sinking ship.

Um, and this is completely different language to what other previous coaches have used where if they've been shown the door and he's saying that, "You know, I, I, I don't think that, in that case, I don't wanna be here." So that's completely different language from him, and I think that Dan's a very proud man.

He's a very, he's a very tough, he's a very tough man.

But I think he also genuinely really cares about ev- the organization that he's parts, part of, and-

So, um, yeah, interesting that Dan McKellar even at the end was backing Cat.

Can I just, can I just jump in on that? I think that, I think that if something that teams all around the world value and, and put high value on is a zone execution, so how many times you enter the 22 and you score points.

Est-ce que vous pensez qu'il a un héritage ?

Je pense qu'il en a une, je ne suis pas sûr que c'est la meilleure.

En termes de délivrance, je pense qu'il a fait ce qu'il disait qu'il allait faire, qui était de faire le travail difficile de réparer les finances publiques et de réformer certaines parties des dépenses du gouvernement.

Je pense que le problème était qu'il n'avait pas la personnalité de prendre le public ou même son parti avec lui sur cette voie.

Est-ce qu'on peut le remplacer ? C'est une bonne décision.

C'est vraiment la question de 6 millions de dollars.

Si vous demandez au Parti Tauride, quand ils ont changé de Boris Johnson à Rishi Sunak et Liz Truss.

Comment imaginez-vous qu'il s'agirait de déclencher son agenda initial ?

[upbeat music] Hi, Tom.

Uh, I'm good.

Yeah, it's all good.

Thank you.

Yeah

... which is, which is all good.

So at the moment, I've got three projects, and I spin my projects out to work, to do work for commercial clients.

So, um, I've got one waiting to hear back from...

Uh, what you're seeing, what brokers and shippers should be doing now, and what you think for the second half of 2026.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So, um, as everyone knows, uh, last month starting right around the DOT blitz, um, demand surged, right? And supply was already kind of taken out of the market from a lot of the factors that were going on from DOT blitz, uh, ELP, um, non-domiciled.

So a lot of that took, uh, a lot of capacity out, but the demand surged is what I saw.

It w- it was...

And you saw me posting on X, you couldn't find, like every, all the carriers and drivers, "Well, just pay more." Well, that doesn't help if you can't find a truck.

[laughs]

So on one level, John, First Minister will be happy that he's going to succeed in killing this inquiry but do you agree with me that it's probably short-sighted for him to do so? Yeah it

kind of feels like John Swinney's approach here is to try to keep a lid on it and hope that in a relatively short period of time this scandal is going to go away and the problem is that it's just not.

There's so many different directions that it can branch off into.

You've got the possibility of another police inquiry for pushing for this investigation into the £600,000 rather than just the fraud.

There's the possibility of a Westminster inquiry.

There's the questions over the short money, i.e. public money that has gone into the SNPU.

while this fraud's happening there's cash for seats questions and what else Peter Murrell might have been taking money for whether he was accepting cash from donors so there's just so many different directions that this could go off into the SNP's political enemies know that they've got real fertile ground here and I think it probably would have been more sensible for John Swinney to realise that there is no way to keep a cap on this so the better strategy would be to try to control it to have your own inquiry in Holyrood or order some sort of independent SNP inquiry rather than desperately try to suppress any more talk and end up with um mps in the in the commons doing their inquiry i think they're going to absolutely slaughter the smp if that's the way this ends up going

What

So how quickly, John, did you realize that it was, it was a big story?

So over the weekend in April that we first put on the front page that the, that the police were...

The, the, the big thing that changed it for us was that a couple of the active SNP activists who had given money had come forward to speak to us and said, "Look, this, uh, you know, we're real-- we really gave money.

We really don't know where it is.

We've contacted the police.

The police have come and interviewed us, and we've got a crime number now." Um, and we looked at that, and we thought, "Well, these people, there clearly is a real police investigation." Three people have resigned from the SNP's Finance and Audit Committee.

Um, you know, there, there could be so- There, I...

They were saying nothing to see here, right?

And you did, though, John, didn't you, face quite strong pushback for some time from the SNP? What was that like and how unusual is that? Because they were denying, they were saying nothing to see here, right?

Yeah, so the pushback was really quite extraordinary.

Both before and after publication, we were told that we are taking the word of swivel-eyed loons, that this was some kind of David Icke conspiracy theory, that we were effectively the useful idiots of Alex Salmond, that there was absolutely no validity to this story, that it would be proved wrong, that we were going to look pretty stupid in the end and so when you're you know when you're taking all that flack it can it can be quite you do sort of it gives you pause for thought but looking back we did just feel that the facts of the story were pretty clear and after that there was quite a long period before the story sort of went away but in the background there was a lot of other things happening for example We published a story about the SNP losing 30,000 members, which was actually very linked to this stuff because that was a big reason for the huge drop-off in the amount of money that was flowing into the accounts.

That story was also furiously denied.

But then shortly after that, Nicola Sturgeon resigned.

There was a leadership bid.

The true membership numbers had to be published and turned out our story had in actual fact been entirely correct.

More broadly, how have you gauged how Nicola Sturgeon and also how the SNP have approached their interactions with the media since this story escalated in recent days?

What is your theory on the great unanswered question, which is why did he do it?

So it's a great question.

Um, I think anyone looking at the list of purchases that he made, there is something almost quite sad about it.

You've got to wonder about the guy's state of mind.

Um, he, it, it doesn't really talk of someone with a full and happy life when you look at all these bizarre purchases of, you know, of our more luxurious salt and pepper shakers and things like that.

Um, so, you know, I, I think there does seem to be a facet of this which has to do with, with his state of mind and, uh, you know, he's, he ...

Does it, does it strike you as the sort of the actions of a particularly happy man? Um, but I think if you, if you're really looking for a, a hard reason that he might have had, a key to that might lie in, um, looking back at SNP accounts and the fact that Peter Murrell's salary was, um, noted at around over £100,000 before Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister.

John, do you think that history's gonna be kind to Nicola Sturgeon?

Mm

... 2023 where they lost by, like, fif- like, like 50s forward.

Suli Asi Ula Valu scored a couple of tries, um, for the Reds.

But I think that w- if you wanna be worried about where you're scoring tries for, from, you need to source ball in the 22.

And without Lukhan and without Josh Cannon, the Reds aren't winning a ball in the line out a- inside the Force and Force 22 because they have-

No.

Nick Frost, Tom Ryan, and Alan Alaalatoa have not been where they ne- They, they have, themselves, their lofty standards.

Uh, not to mention what, what the, what the people of Canberra and Australia know what they can bring.

Um, but before we get into the actual nitty-gritty and the controversy that has come out of that game, Fergo, what were your thoughts just on the game itself and the, the Reds' performance?

I thought the Reds were, were really promising.

They've been building really nicely, and they have been, from week to week, really taken a part of their game and gone to another level with it.

With attack in particular, they're doing really, really well, and I think against the Chiefs early in that game, they looked like the best, one of the best attacks they've had all season.

Their set piece is still really, really shaky, and I think if you wanna look at where they won and lost that game, that's where they won and lost that game, set piece.

It doesn't matter whether it's scrum.

Aidan Ross, uh, the celebrated, you know, 100-capped, uh, Super Rugby Chief, uh, who is now playing for the Reds, he hasn't been scrummaging or playing particularly well.

Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Uh, absolutely.

So one of the things that I really, uh, just absolutely despise is, uh, y- you know, on the, uh, mainstream media and, and a lot of shows, you know, you have these, uh, old generals and old retired senators and, you know, people of authority who are very respectable people, uh, but they're, they're going out on the, the news and they're saying, "Well, the Trump's administration is gonna do this, and this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen, this is gonna happen." I was never a high level, you know, person in the military.

I mean, I, I, I was mischievous and I always got in trouble, so, you know-

Yeah.

All of the motors, the copper, the windings, the magnets, you know, those are all manufactured in China.

So, um, r- we're really being stifled by not only the disruption in the relationship between China and the United States right now, but also all of these conflicts that are happening around the world are...

There's this massive influx of requirements for drones and these manufacturing, uh, companies that are manufacturing these components, they can't keep up.